Reflections on Sustainable Cleveland 2019.
The ‘Sustainable Cleveland 2019′ – a three day summit presented by the City of Cleveland is similar to summits and symposiums in which I participated [the symposium on youth violence for juveniles in cleveland (August 2007), Voices and Choices (2005-6) and numerous ones in college] .
Such an event usually has small group discussions and brainstorming sessions which produce a plan of action to attain the goals is created the participants’ consensus of a list of priorities and goals. Some times, no plan of action is created to reach these goals. Even if a plan of action to attain the goals is created at the event (a failure of Voices and Choices) there is not sufficient follow-up among the participants and the event’s leadership to ensure actions towards the goals are made and if the current actions are not effective to achieve the goal, change the actions. In a comment on BFD, Ed Morrison concisely articulated this criticsm as well.
2 Weeks after the summit, what steps are being taken to harness the energy created at the summit and follow through with the talk ?
- There have not been any published action plans to move forward.
- Earlier this morning, I have asked the City’s Office of Sustainability in an email if any recommendations or goals have been released yet and if not, when they will be. No reponse yet – I’ll be sure to let everyone know.
- When are the future meetings that will measure the implementation of the goals ?
Reported in the Plain Dealer is that Frank Jackson hoped formal recommendations would be made in a week or two. (At this blog post’s publishing, has been 11 days since the summit ended).
- </Frank Jackson writes that he will “report to the community on the progress we have made in the first year of this journey.”
- While it’s nice to announce the city’s progress after one year, it’s important to make short-term before the energy and enthusaism from the summit dissipates and people and organizations resume their previous routines.
Update [Aug 26, 7:30 PM]: I received a response from the office [Evelyn Burnett] and ‘the recommendations are being finished and will be released soon, but no firm date’ However, Evelyn noted that online collaboration is continuing at http://clevelandsummit.ning.com/
